Process of manufacturing down from feathers



(No Model.) J. BURTON.

PROCESS OF MANUFACTURING DOWN FROM FBATHERS. No.- 5384354. v Patented May 7, 1895.

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JOHN BURTON, OF HINSDALE, ILLINOIS.

:QPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 538,6 54', dated May '7, 1895. Application filed November 2, 1894. Serial No. 527,696. (No specimens.)

To all whom, it may concern:

Be it known that I, JOHN BURTON, a citizen of the United States, residing at Hinsdale,in

the county of Du Page and State of Illinois, have invented a new and useful Improvement in Processes of Manufacturing Down from Feathers, of which the following is a specification. Y

My invention relates to the manufacture of artificial down from feathers.

I have discovered, and herein my invention consists, that short, stiff feathers, or pieces of the machine.

feathers, which have heretofore been little utilized or considered as waste, may be practically utilized to great advantage in the manufacture of down by feeding or conveying such feathers in and by an air current between a pair of oppositely revolving disks furnished withcntting, tearing or disintegrating radial ribs; the cutting, tearing or disintegrating action of the oppositely revolving disks serving to reduce the quill,shaft or stiff portions of the feather to fine, elastic shredsor fibers without materially breaking, shortening or injuring the fibers of the web or vane portionof the feathers, while the co-operating action of the air current serves to feed or carry the feathers into, through and out of the disks and to keep the material properly distributed between the surfaces of the disks while being operated upon thereby, and to prevent the fine fibrous adhering material from matting, winding or wedging together tion, and Fig. 2 is a vertical section on line 2 2 of Fig. 1.

In the drawings A represents the frame of B B are two oppositely revolvin g disks placed face to face in close 3' uxtaposition to .each other, and each furnished with a series of radial cutting, tearing or disintegrating ribs 19 b. The shafts B B, to which the two disks B Bare rigidly fixed, are driven in opposite directions by the driving pulleys B B G is a case or shell surrounding the disks B B, the same having openings 0 c for the two shafts B B.

D is a fan for producing the air current or suction through the machine. This fan may be of any ordinary or well known construction known to those skilled in the art. The exhaust or inlet piped of the fan leads to the case or shell 0 and communicates with the chamber 0, which may be termed the disintegrating chamber, as the disks B B are mounted in it. The discharge pipe at of the fan leads to the bin or chamber where it is desired to deposit the manufactured down.

F is the feed hopper, its mouth or opening fcommnnicating with the central feed openings b b, with which one of the disks B is provided near its hub or center.

G is a box or frame iuclosing the machine, the top or cover G of this box serving also as a feed table on which the feathers are deposited, and from which the operator feeds or shoves them into the hopper.

In operation the cutting, tearing or disin tegrating disks B B are revolved rapidly in opposite directions, as indicated by the arrows in Fig. 1, and the fan D being set in motion so as to produce a strong suction or air current through the machine, the operator feeds or pushes the feathers into the hopper F. The feathers are then by the suction or air current conveyed into and between the two oppositely revolving disks B B near their center, and are then by centrifugal action and by the air current forced or conveyed radially outward and between the radial ribs 1) b, by the action of which the quill, shaft or stiff portion of the feathers are reduced to fine shreds or particles, thus reducing the whole mass of feathers to a uniform downlike product, consisting of fine, soft, elastic fibers; and the continued action of the air current serves to convey the finished product out of the shell 0 and from between the disks B B and discharge the same into the bin or room to which the discharge pipe d of the fan grating operation while being so conveyed leads. through such chamber, substantially as speci- I0 I claim-- fled. The art or process of manufacturing down IOHN BURTON 5 from feathers, consisting in feeding and con veying the feathers in and by an air current Witnesses: through an inclosing chamber and subjecting II. M. MUNDAY, the same to a cutting, tearing or disinte- JOHN W. MUNDAY. 

